Profile
Craig Melrose is the Executive Vice President of Digital Transformation Solutions at PTC. He leads an organization that builds customer-facing solutions using industry-leading Computer Aided Design (CAD), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Internet of Things (IoT), and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. Craig is a thought leader in operations excellence and digital transformation and an expert on large-scale Industry 4.0 programs. Prior to joining PTC, Craig led numerous operations and digital transformation initiatives during his 20-year career at McKinsey & Company. Throughout his career, he has helped companies enhance their factory automation strategies, including Toyota Motor Manufacturing, where for five years prior to joining McKinsey, he led the improvement of Toyota’s lean production systems through the introduction of new products.
PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) is a global software and services company that empowers digital transformation for industrial, aerospace and defense, electronics, and other companies through industry-leading 3D (CAD), PLM, IoT, and AR solutions.
Key Theme: Digital Accelerates and Magnifies Traditional Metrics of Running a Business
“Companies have always had a P&L statement and a balance sheet. I think the financials of running a business is the native language of business—it’s been around for a thousand years and it will be around for a thousand more. Companies have always driven improvements of how they operate and how they perform, whether it’s cost reductions, revenue growth, or some combination of the two. Now you have digital technology available at your fingertips, which is enhancing, reinforcing, and accelerating all the traditional improvements of business.
“Digital adds speed to achieving those traditional financial metrics—it’s got double-digit impact and is really transformational. When I think transformation, I define it as a caterpillar-to-butterfly’ transition; once you’re a butterfly, you can’t go back to being a caterpillar. The performance is such that you would never want to undo this transformation, give it back, or lose it because it generates double-digit millions of profit and double-digit percentages of margins. It’s that level of magnitude, it is that type of speed, in about a two- to three-year window.” Craig underscores that digital transformation has to be at the enterprise level to reach absolute double-digit impact. “When you’re getting to that order of magnitude, it is truly business-changing, the benefits of which can be reinvested and utilized in a multitude of ways. It becomes a competitive advantage. Digital unleashes speed and scale to the traditional metrics of improvement.”